


The New Guy in Gym Class

by PrincessDesire



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Needed a break from my longfic, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23588218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessDesire/pseuds/PrincessDesire
Summary: Ren is fascinated by the new guy in his gym class.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 32
Kudos: 156





	1. Chapter 1

The sting of the rope on Ben’s hands is the good kind, not the bleeding kind which he probably feels too often, or the broken bone kind which had made for a really boring stretch of his fifth-grade year, but the kind that can be ignored. The readiness of his arm muscles to handle the task feels natural, makes him feel alive. Getting to the knot at the top of the rope is nothing. He feels like he could keep climbing if the gym roof wasn’t in the way. He could climb until he could meet God himself. Then he’d kick God’s ass and rule from high, punishing everyone who had ever made fun of his big ears or his slow reading.

It’s from this vantage that Ben first sees the new foreign guy. He doesn’t know that he’s from abroad, of course, not yet, but this kid stands out, practically has a “not one of you” sign roped around his neck. He’s crossing his arms in front of himself like a body shield. He’s got a good ten feet of distance from any other student, like when they look at slides under a microscope and, far from the big clump of cells, there’ll just be one loner cell far off not doing any mitosising. Ben’s thinking there’s something different about him and not just the red hair.

“Alright Solo, come down. No need to show off,” yells the PE teacher.

The new guy, Hux, though Ben doesn’t know that yet either, looks up and startles when he notices that Ben’s watching him. His head quickly dips back down, but it’s only moments later when it creeps back up and Hux’s eyes hold his, no longer shying away.

Maybe there’s a reason to show off after all. 

Ben swings his lower half up, wrapping one leg in the rope, and slowly descends upside down. His arms may shake more this way, his muscles unused to carrying his bottom half atop it, but he pulls the maneuver off pretty easily. He orients himself back to proper standing before landing roughly on the royal blue mat.

“Very fancy, Ben,” growls the teacher as he reaches out a hand to steady the swinging rope. He’s offering it to some other student when Ben takes steps toward Hux. 

He worries that his rope trick was probably wasted on the new guy because Hux has stopped watching; his eyes are half-lidded and cast to the side. From here on the ground, his discomfort is less obvious because it appears to be more like indifference. He looks, what? Mean? Cold? Whatever it is, it sure isn’t approachable and the ‘don’t speak to me’ vibes that he’s sending off actually make Ben pause a bit before leaving his fellow dividing cells. When he approaches Hux, it’s with the real obviousness that that’s specifically why he’s left the group. 

It isn’t until he’s about five feet away that Hux looks up at him, distrust obvious in his eyes. The red hair looks brighter from here and Ben notes the pale skin and, for the first but not the last time, the full bottom lip and perfectly curved upper lip. Ben can’t think of anything to say. Lucky for him, he’s not the type to carefully choose his words, so the silence while he very slightly panics about having walked over with no conversation in mind is brief. “You’re new.”

“Perceptive.” Accompanying the snarky reply is a quirk of Hux’s left eyebrow. Ben had expected some level of gratitude for going out of his way to greet a new student who was obviously all alone and feeling like an outlier regardless of whether altruism or pure self-interest motivated the attempt. “Did you also notice I have red hair?”

Nope, no gratitude here. “And you have an English accent.”

Hux sighs and looks just over his shoulder at nothing in particular. “That tends to follow when one comes from England.”

None of this is going well and Ben decides that if he gets one more dickish response from this good-looking new kid that he will cut his losses and go before the others notice this pathetic display. Instead, his mouth decides to end the conversation before even that point when he says, “You don’t look like the athletic type.”

Ben looks far more surprised at what he’s said than Hux. The mantra currently running of “stupid, stupid” in his mind is so loud and so perfectly enunciated that he can almost hear the accompanying slaps that he wants to bombard his skull with. Hux opens his mouth slightly then shuts it, not even bothering to respond to what definitely was an insult and what surely must seem like an intended insult because why else would someone point out physical inferiority without meaning to be a total dickhead?

“I meant, you probably can’t climb rope…” Ben offers. “Or maybe you just don’t like to?” He thoroughly regrets the last thirty seconds of his life.

Hux’s arms unwind and he looks directly into Ben’s eyes. “I’m sorry, why are we having this conversation?”

Ben opts to abort the conversation, ready to just leave its smoldering ashes here on the gym floor. “Nevermind,” he mutters and returns to the group gathered around the mat. No one seems to have noticed his departure at all.

He tries to stop looking at Hux during the rest of the class. He fails at that as well. Hux climbs up the rope just fine. As Hux walks away from the mat, rope swinging behind him, he looks at Ben. There’s less gloating there than a warning glare. “Don’t underestimate me,” is about the gist of it. Ben, strangely, is the first to look away.

  
  


The clink of glass plates is actually welcome since it means they’re no longer using paper ones. The sound of his stepmother’s chattering, endless and inane, is less pleasant to the eardrums. Her story while she readies the table and dishes out their dinner involves finding a store chain she hadn’t expected to find here. Hux takes it in, gathering the useless knowledge as he does all knowledge, but with annoyance. How his father, a man who prides himself on efficacy of actions and economy of words, ever managed to choose Mara as a wife is beyond Hux. Most times Brendol Hux is as predictable as a well-worn book (non-fiction, of course), but now and then he behaves as erratically as a drunkard; his marriage to Mara, materialistic socialite, serves as a shining beacon of an example in that narrower category. 

The meal is a simple pasta dish; Mara doesn’t like the idea of being the family’s chef and doesn’t devote much time to meal preparation. It’s serviceable. 

“Is the new school going to work out for you?” asks Brendol. 

There’s a number of questions behind that one and being Brendol’s son, Hux knows them all. His father wants him to succeed academically. He doesn’t care if Hux is liked as long as social isolation doesn’t prevent him from doing well in his classes. He doesn’t want Hux to just get As, but to come away with information he can use later in life. If this school doesn’t seem like it will further these goals, Brendol would not hesitate to ship him to a farther school. 

“Yes,” says Hux after giving it sufficient consideration. 

“Do you have any fun classes?” asks Mara as though it’s relevant.

Hux delays putting the next bite into his mouth to answer her anyway. If he ignores her too often, Brendol corrects his behaviour. “The US history class requires only one final project and there’s no other homework for the rest of the semester.”

Brendol shakes his head. “That’s going to end with a lot of failed students who don’t properly plan.” 

“I’d thought so as well,” says Hux. “It’s a unique way to conduct a class.” Hux already knows about which topic he wants to do his project and he’s excited to be able to apply his fascination with the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in the 1940s. 

“Tell me your other teachers aren’t so frivolous with their assignments.”

Hux doesn’t see the assignment as frivolous, though he does share his father’s skepticism about how many of the students will actually get something from the class. He likes the idea of being able to dedicate so much time to one project. He already deep dives into old military weaponry in his spare time and this will allow him to do so without Brendol pestering him about staying on task. “Not that I’ve seen,” he answers. 

“Good,” grunts Brendol. 

After the meal, Mara and Brendol continue a conversation they’d been having, leaving him to clear the table. He runs a wet rag across it, snagging up loose crumbs and shaking them into the trash before rinsing the rag. Dinner is the only enforced family meal. Hux tries not to waste energy on wishing for things to be other than they are, but there are many nights when he dreads facing his father so much that he daydreams about just hopping out the window and never returning. Flights of fancy that only make dealing with the task at hand more difficult. He snatches a plum from the fruit bowl and leaves the kitchen. 


	2. Chapter 2

Ben wishes he had thought to grab his hoodie when he walks into the kitchen and sees that Leia hasn’t yet left for work. It’s too late now to go back to his room; she’s seen him now anyway and her eyes had already judged him and found him wanting. These days she’s only still home for breakfast about once or twice a week. He’s happy enough with her absences of course, but Rey, she gets to missing her mom if she’s away too much, so he must resign himself to her infrequent but continued presence. 

Leia is standing next to the coffee pot, chubby fingers cradling a navy blue mug and obscuring the blocky white letters which read “Bitch fuel.” She smiles at him without any enthusiasm, though the Botox keeps any of her expressions from being particularly emotive. He doesn’t return the gesture. He does spare a bit of one for Rey who is almost finished with her bowl of fruit loops at the dining room table. She calls out to him, “Mornin!”

Rey is the only morning person in the Solo family. She’s the only one with a sunny disposition now that Han is dead. With the combination of her adorable round face and positive peppy attitude, she’d be downright insufferable if she didn’t somehow get in with the little sister clause. 

As he pulls out his own cereal, some generic bran flakes with raisins, and pours them into a bowl, Leia speaks to him.

“I’ve got a lunch meeting Saturday. I need you to watch Rey.” Then, when he hesitates, she adds, “Just a few hours.”

There’s not a hint of request to her words, but magnanimously, Ben treats it as such anyway. “Okay, but I’m not on babysitting duty at all on Sunday.” Too many weekends have passed lately where he’s had to be her stand-in. He’s too young to be a dad and definitely too celibate, so she can deal with the mess that her uterus has made. Surprisingly, Leia doesn’t grouch back at him while he adds the milk. He ruffles Rey’s hair before leaving the kitchen for the sanctuary of his room. 

  
  


PE was never going to be his favorite class - he prefers his challenges to be mental and hates the machismo displayed by others of his sex - but the one at this high school brings with it the unexpected and annoying addition of a long-haired, sad-eyed observer. After their first interaction, Hux assumed that this would be a future attempted bully, one whom he would dispatch easily enough as he had his adversaries at past schools, but so far this one, Ben, only seems to watch him. He’d rather fade into anonymity even when he isn’t wearing darling little red shorts and panting like a dog left in a hot car. It’s infuriating how often he catches the other boy staring, only to look away as though he hadn’t been. This Ben Solo only seems to have slow reflexes when it comes to Hux stalking, because he’s one of the first, often  _ the _ first done with laps. Then, when Hux finally finishes up his own track obligations, Ben will completely ignore him when they sit in the grass near each other, each stretching their long legs to stave off muscle injuries.

He wonders if he shouldn’t feel complimented, like if, despite the initial insults to his appearance and mocking of his outsider status, Ben secretly harbors some feelings of attraction or the like. It’s a far-fetched wonder because there’s not much attractive about Hux’s knock-knees or red face. Then, why? Well, he’s never been one to prevaricate. 

It’s Friday and the gym teacher seems to have taken to celebrating the upcoming weekend early if the odor that wafts around him and his unenthusiastic attitude is any indicator, so he has them more or less doing fuck all while he leans against a metal fence with his sunglasses tight against the bridge of his nose. Everyone is chatting, some while half-heartedly tossing a ball and others while stretching only by a technicality. Hux again catches Ben looking and, since now is as good a time as any, he decides to satisfy his own curiosity, even at the risk of potentially converting the watcher into a bully.

He stands with a hopefully non-confrontational stance, though he is feeling so, until Ben looks up at him. There is a quite a caught out emotion mixed in with Ben’s surprise. “I”ve been meaning to ask…” starts Hux, as though they’d been in conversation already. “Why it is you find me so fascinating to look at?”

“I wouldn’t call you fascinating,” replies Ben cruelly. 

It’s only a minor hurt; he has no real investment in his classmate and values his opinion as little as he would a grocery store clerk. “Then why the…?” Hux wiggles his forefinger and middle finger around his eyes indicating the staring. 

Ben looks away and one of his shoulders rolls backward like it’s trying to wiggle out of the conversation. Good, thinks Hux. He hopes to create as much discomfort as he can as punishment for annoying him. When Ben turns his eyes back, he looks dismayed to find that Hux is still standing there awaiting an answer.

“I didn’t mean to say that you couldn’t climb the rope.”

“Just that I was too frail to,” suggests Hux. 

Ben’s lips purse in annoyance and his eyebrows unite. “No, not that either. I just didn’t know you could.” 

Hux has been too distracted by their talk and it catches him by surprise in an unpleasant flinching way when a ball sails past his face into Ben’s quick hand. It’s an American football and while it wouldn’t have done as much damage as a baseball, Hux would have been none too happy to have his face smashed by it. Ben easily throws the ball at, presumably a friend, or perhaps the unthinking clod who had sent it inches from Hux’s face.

“But, that wasn’t what I was trying to say,” explains Ben. The sport had been so instinctive to him, like he’s a separate entity from his body. Whether he’d admit it or not, Hux finds this a tad impressive. He waits, probably longer than he should, for the explanation that’s coming from Ben who can’t seem to make eye contact with him, at least not on purpose and he is very aware of the way Ben shifts his weight from foot to foot. It radiates nervousness, almost creates some in Hux just by proxy. Finally, Ben seems to have come to the conclusion of an inner monologue and he does look in Hux’s face when he asks, “Would you come to a concert with me on Saturday?”

“Instead of asking me to a concert, you accidentally called me weak and foreign?”

Ben growls. “Forget it, then.”

He starts to walk away, but Hux reaches out a hand to his shoulder, stopping him in mid-storm off. The two exchange what feels like a combative stare, though he’s not even sure what it’s about or who is winning. He lets his hand drop. Had the awkward first conversation just been Ben being nervous about asking him out? If so, Hux had drastically misunderstood. Still, Ben’s not apologizing, not openly, though it feels like an attempt at one. 

Hux nods. “Okay.” It’s not an overjoyed response, but a cautious one, because he’s still not certain of intent. 

“Yeah?” asks Ben, surprise and an uptick of happiness in his voice. “Well, okay. If you give me your number, I’ll text where it’s at and stuff.” Then he seems to remember that neither of them have their cellphones - a combo of class policy and shorts with no pockets. “I mean, once we head back to the locker room.” 

“Sure,” says Hux, but then, after class, he instead asks for Ben’s number with the honest but half-truth excuse of not having yet committed his phone number to memory. When Ben recites it, he saves it to a note app. He intends to download a secondary number app before reaching out, just in case this turns out to be a new student prank. 

“Right,” says Hux. “Well, I shall be in touch.” It’s all very businesslike. His locker is far from Ben’s so they don’t change while staring at each other, thank god for small favors, but it still feels awkward and he feels a little out of body. Did he really just schedule his first date? Why in the world had he done that?


	3. Chapter 3

Leia gets home on Saturday at 4pm ending Ben’s babysitting duties with plenty of time for him to get ready for his date with Hux. It’s too much time. Obviously he’s going to wear his Hosnian Prime Massacre t-shirt that he’d bought from the merch table at the last concert of theirs he’d gone to. They’d just been an opening band, but he’d been blown away, very nearly literally, by the loudness of their sound and the violence of their lyrics. The band had one album, one mass-produced one anyway, and the shirt was just the cover of their album, a picture of planets exploding. He’d been unable to stop from handing them over the cash. As for pants, he only has black jeans in different variations of tightness. He tries sometimes to get away with skinny jeans. They don’t look terrible on him, but his quad muscles bunch too much underneath them. It makes him look curvy, like his lower half is that of a girl who describes herself as thicc. So, he tends to wear them looser, preferring to look a bit dated in his fashion sense rather than looking bootylicious.

His hair doesn’t require any effort either. Strangely, he uses less product now that it’s long compared to when he’d worn it as a globe of jagged spikes. One swipe of pomade through each side after a shower keeps it from getting chaotic; he’s kind of a greasy dude, so his hair only looks fluffy right after it’s freshly cleaned, before the natural scalp oils set to work. He waffles back and forth about guyliner. His last, and only, boyfriend had been crazy about Ben with lined eyes, but it’s way more common for people to find it too girly. He opts to skip it, until he has a better chance to feel out what Hux’s tastes are.

The hours before his date pass by so tediously, with his head such a riot of nervous self-doubt energy, that he plays Sonic with Rey. He’d rather play something like Fortnight or Overwatch, but Rey’s not allowed to play anything with guns yet, so they only do when Leia is away. So far she’s been nothing short of exceptional at keeping secrets. He has smuggled her extra desserts (she’s obsessed with all baked goods), taught her how to hock loogies at impressive distances, and shown her the unmitigated awesome that is pro wrestling all without a peep getting back to Leia. Once she grows up, Ben thinks she’s going to be the coolest chick he knows. For now, she still has her occasional tantrums (and, man, what is with the screaming for no reason thing?) that rule her out from being completely cool. He considers her sort of an apprentice of cool.

The concert starts at 9, but he’s out the door by 8, regardless that the bus takes only like 20 minutes. There’s no line to get in. He waits around out front for his date occasionally nodding to the handful of concert goers with similar t-shirts to his. He wants to feel included, but it just makes him feel like a sheep. HPN really needs to put out more albums, so they’re not all wearing the same shirt like fast food employees. 

He’s worried he’s going to say something fucking stupid like he had the day they’d met. Since then, he’s felt like there’s some kind of IQ-sucking forcefield around Hux. When he’s around, all Ben wants to do is stare at him. He gets these fantasies in his head, most of them sexual, a few of them disgustingly sweet, and some of them just plain weird. Like, the day before he’d asked Hux out, he’d noticed Hux watching a squirrel. So, he had this idea in his head of Hux surrounded by squirrels and he was convincing them to become an army to take over the school. He handed each one a little acorn grenade and was teaching them how to pull the pins out with their tiny little rodent fingers. That’s a super weird fantasy to have, but that was just how his head seemed to work when Hux was near. He got way stupid and way weird. 

He looks around and suddenly notices that Hux is beside him. When did that happen? “Oh!” he exclaims in surprise. Dammit. He’d been daydreaming about daydreaming. Maybe it wasn’t just Hux’s influence, maybe he was genuinely an idiot. “Hey, man, how long have you been standing there?”

Hux is wearing a long black coat that’s open at the front. He’s got a bunch of buttons, not like the sew-on kind, but the decorative pin kind on both sides of the chest-covering parts of the coat. Ben wants to scour them all, ask about the meaning behind each one. He’s so distracted by his staring that he misses what Hux actually said, and he just nods, assuming that Hux said he hasn’t been here long. “The first band’s been on for like 15 minutes.” Ben had been able to tell by the sounds coming from outside the building. “They’ll probably start late. Did you want to hear um...whoever the first band is?” He wishes he’d paid more attention to the marquee, but they can’t see it from here and he never gives the opening band the benefit of the doubt, always assumes that they’ll suck until proven otherwise.

“Yes, we should go in.”

“Great,” says Ben with a smile.

It feels good to stroll into the place with Hux beside him. Hux looks so different outside of the silly gym uniform. He looks aloof, like he’s better than everyone there and knows it. There’s no seating, just a large floor for standing, dancing, jumping around, and sometimes moshing. Ben’s happy to let out his aggression in a pit, but tonight’s about making a better impression that he had initially. Hux leads them to an empty spot near the right speakers. It pleases Ben that he won’t be on the spot for good conversation and that his date likes his music loud.

The opening band, Red 5, is pretty blah, as he’d expected, but that doesn’t stop them both from nodding their heads and shifting their feet a bit to the mediocre music. It seems like they’re up there forever and Ben wonders if he shouldn’t have told Hux that the concert started at 10. The floor becomes much more crowded once HPM take the stage and Ben’s surprised that they have a big enough following for the amount of people; sometimes he feels like he’s the only person that’s even heard of them. They lead with one of his favorites, Death Ray from the Sky. Sometimes, he’ll sing slightly modified lyrics to his little sister who enjoys being the subject of a song that has too many f-bombs for her five year old ears. He can’t help but thrash a bit, date or not, and he finds that Hux is joining him in the endeavor, though he looks less natural doing it, like maybe it’s his first time. They’re surrounded by the wriggling bodies around them, though, so there’s no need to feel self-conscious. It’s a great feeling, to be swallowed up by the living mass of metalheads. 

After the third song, Hux takes off his coat, folding it over his arms. His face is gleaming with sweat and seeing it affects Ben as it always does in gym class. He wants to lick it off, to touch it and feel the heat of Hux’s skin. Man, he doesn’t know why he’s so fucking into this new guy, but he is, wants to snap him like a bone and suck out the marrow. Instead, he yells out “Coat check” as loud as he can, but Hux still can’t understand his offer. He touches the coat and points back to the entrance. The connection gets made, Hux finally understanding the mini game of charades. He nods and lets go of the coat. Carrying it to the coat check feels like a holy task ordained by the gods. He carries it in front of him like it’s a crown atop a pillow. 

When he returns, it’s easy to spot Hux by the flash of red hair as it moves this way and that. In Ben’s absence, probably inspired by the freedom of coatlessness, Hux appears to have really let go, flailing about with loose pale limbs and that tranced out moshy expression he’s seen many times on many people, but not this one, the one that really matters. Instead of taking his place beside his date, he watches starstruck until the song finishes. When it does, Hux spots him and smiles. Ben’s heart flutters. He’s never seen him smile before.

HPN only plays for a little over an hour, but it’s a hell of an hour. They’re thoroughly exhausted by the time the band plays its last song, the real last song, not the fake one before the encore. After the normal lights come up, Hux buys them overpriced bottled waters and they lean against a wall and gulp them down while the place clears out.

“Thanks!” yells Ben. Any conversation that they have for the rest of the night will be yelled, since their ears are now doing that weird hiss of absence of sound. 

Hux looks confused, but Ben shakes his empty water bottle, and he gets it. “No problem. You got the tickets.”

“I’ve had them for weeks, before I knew one was for you.” That sounded stupid. They were tickets, not destiny stubs. “I mean, like, I didn’t buy them for you.”

Yep, 3 minutes of not having blaring metal music overhead and he’s already torpedoing this date. 

“Let’s get my coat.”

They toss the empty bottles into the trash and Ben trades the ticket for the coat. As he passes it on to Hux, he feels like he at least did that right. It was gentlemanly or something, to not just make his date keep wearing a big heavy coat while thrashing around like some mad redheaded berserker. He doesn’t immediately put it back on and Ben can tell by the glisten that’s still on his skin why that is. The cool night air feels awesome and they both just bask for a minute in it. 

Hux pulls out his phone. “My next bus is in 7 minutes.”

“I’ll wait with you,” offers Ben. He follows the still coatless redhead the thirty feet or so to the bus stop. 

They watch concert goers driving off, saying their goodbyes. Ben tries to come up with some topic of conversation. Now that he’s standing inches away, he can’t stare so he focuses on the grocery store that’s kitty corner to the theatre. 

“Good show. You’ve seen them before?” Hux points to Ben’s shirt.

“Yeah,” he looks down as though he’s surprised to still be wearing it. “Yeah, they opened for another band and they rocked way harder than the headliner. Do you listen to metal?”

There’s a slight twitch to Hux’s lip, as though Ben’s asked something silly and he’s trying not to laugh. “I did tonight.”

Ben’s not sure what to make of that. There’s not much that he’s feeling confident about when it comes to this new interest. Hux had agreed to join him tonight so he must not be carrying too much of a grudge. “Do you have... any favorite... foods?” The question draws out long as he tries to think of something to ask.

He deserves the incredulous look on Hux’s face, the one that says ‘is that the best you could come up with to ask?’ Luckily, he doesn’t say this, but instead pops out a succinct “um,” which doesn’t get followed immediately by anything. Then, “Well, I’m quite fond of sweets, though I’m not allowed to have any processed kinds.” Ben’s never heard the word processed pronounced that way, with such a long O. It makes his own way of talking sound so damn bumpkin by comparison. “I have occasionally nicked a candy or two.” It sounds like a mix of a confession and a brag.

Ben holds up his hands. “Whoa, I didn’t realize I was on a date with a criminal!”

Immediately, Hux’s eyes look downward at the pavement. “That’s what this is then?”

Shit! Had he not been clear enough? He can’t remember his exact words when he’d asked Hux out, but they’d felt really vulnerable and humiliating, so he assumes that they were close enough to “please for the love of all that’s holy go on a date with me because I think I’m obsessed with you” to convey that he has some sort of romantic interest. “Oh, um, shit, yeah. I… I mean, it doesn’t have to be?”

“But it’s what you intended?” 

Hux raises his face again, looking at him inquisitively. While just his presence is generally enough to plummet Ben’s IQ, the addition of his attention just adds some super fast heart beating into the equation. Ben really cannot take his eyes off those plump lips and he absolutely should because right now he’s not even sure this was a date, at least not for both of them. “Uh yeah, I mean, is that okay?” He sounds twelve instead of sixteen. 

Hux lets out a loud sigh that could mean anything. It makes Ben want to scream. So does the silence that follows it. Finally, he gets a response that’s also maddening. “It’s okay.” Then, perhaps noticing Ben’s wide eyes and the fact that he probably looks like a confused shaken up soda bottle, he adds, “It’s what I thought you meant.”

“Good, cause it was.” 

“Yes.”

The bus appears, illuminated inside lights and high up outside lights giving it away before it reaches Hux’s stop. “Thank you,” says Hux. “This was certainly an experience.”

His body language, arms wrapped tightly around his coat, feet pointing towards the oncoming bus, and shifty eyes all yell how not into this Hux is, how desperate he must be to get back home. Ben’s having trouble reconciling it with the wild-haired, sweaty-faced guy he’d been thrashing out with just a little earlier. Now he looks all tight, like a long string caught in a vacuum’s brushes. 

“Yeah, thanks for coming. I’d have eaten the ticket anyway, couldn’t find anyone else to go.” He hadn’t asked anyone else. 

“Ah,” replies Hux with a nod. “Right.” When the bus pulls up, Hux actually raises his hand in a wave. “Well, goodnight then.”

“Yeah, see you at school.” Ben doesn’t wave back. 

He does watch the bus drive away. It’s long gone before he says into the night, “What the hell was that?” The night has no reply.

  
  


Hux assumed when he woke up on Sunday morning feeling like a train was going through his head and like all of his bones were lined with concrete that it was the after effects of the dancing, but by mid-afternoon his body rejects the meager amount of lunch he’d tried to consume and he realizes he’s full-on ill. He must look like hell because his stern bear of a father looks concerned. He places his sausage fingers on Hux’s forehead. 

“You’re burning up, boy.” Hux suspected as much given the chills and the dizziness. Having it announced makes it more real, makes him feel sicker. “I’ll get you something. Just sleep it off. No Hux ever stays sick more than 24 hours.”

He’s heard the mantra before; mostly it’s accurate. With the exception of his father’s burst appendix and the utterly debilitating flu he’d caught in Italy when he was nine, they were generally healthy in a day or two. His father brings him two little white pills. Taking them dry, as is expected of him, induces immediate nausea to the point that he grabs at the little trash can by his bed. A little lukewarm tap water helps rid the medicinal taste from his mouth and he manages to keep them down. 

The pills bring him strange dreams even though he’s sleeping so lightly that he’s practically awake, constantly lurching and looking at the clock wondering how long this will last. The images are nightmares, half-formed and skittery. He’s only wearing his underwear but he’s still too hot. He opens the window only to lie back down on the outline of his sweat and find more of the bad dream monsters waiting behind his barely closed eyelids. 

By Monday evening, he does feel better, but he is absolutely still sick. The vomiting has stopped and the fever has broken, but he’s still shaky. He watches YouTube videos on his tablet while sipping on the canned soup that Mara heated up for him. He checks his phone and, predictably, sees no incoming texts or calls. No matter, he tells himself. 

Right until the end, he’d thought their date had gone well. He’d even thought, well, he’d been terrified that maybe Ben would try and kiss him. Sixteen may not be absurdly old to not be kissed, but it’s old enough to make things awkward. It’s too built up in his head even after he rationally knows that a kiss isn’t a big deal. Turns out that he needn’t have gotten himself all psyched up, because instead of trying to kiss him, Ben had merely told him that he’d only invited him out as a last resort.

Hux is well aware that he has zero sex appeal, no personality worth delving into, and has made absolutely no friends since attending the new school. He wouldn’t want to ask himself out either. But, Ben  _ had _ . Why did he do that if he had no interest? Yet again Ben Solo’s behavior confounds him.

Luckily, worrying doesn’t keep him up, not with how battered his body is feeling. He sleeps right on through the night when his father comes in to wake him for school. Hux wants very badly to stay home. His head pulses with blood just walking to the toilet and his muscles ache though he hasn’t been using them. Brendol would never agree to two days off in a row; doing so would prove the family mantra wrong and so Hux must endure for the good of their lineage, or some other such nonsense.

He plods like a zombie through his first two classes, resting his head on the desk and watching his breath fog up the fake wood until the bells ring. He changes slowly in the locker room before gym class. Putting his wobbly long legs through the bright red shorts is a bit like putting a clown costume on a cadaver. Life goes on though, sick or not.

Ignoring Ben’s stare is easier today, both because of how he feels and because he has more motivation than usual; there’s a pointedness to his refusal to engage. 

It’s raining today so they are in the gym. The teacher has them warmup with a few laps. Hux is plenty warm as it is and after the slow jog that he takes, it sounds like his heart is going to crash through his chest like the Kool-Aid Man. Next are sit-ups and because they have an odd number in the class and he doesn’t have a partner, Hux must third wheel two friends, rotating off who holds feet and counts. He doesn’t like strangers touching him, but luckily it’s just his sneakers and it’s not a light touch, but whole upper body pressure that makes his toes go numb. They talk and laugh with each other while Hux just survives, the abdominal pressure bringing back the nausea from the previous day. 

Soccer (football) is the indoor game of the day. While teams are decided, Hux slips up and catches Ben’s eyes. He looks away quickly but he still experiences the quick little drop of embarrassment in his stomach, remnants of the shame of Saturday night. He pushes it into the same place he’s trying to stuff his desire to rest. He just needs to get through this day. Time will do its thing; he’ll be healthy again and his not-romantic date with Ben will fade from both their memories. He follows the ball and kicks when he can, but mostly he hangs back at the edge of groups. 

It’s so hot in the gym, humid with the rain outside and the exercising bodies inside. He wipes sweat off his forehead. It’s most likely the fever returning, but there’s not much he can do about it. The ball comes his way and he kicks it up into the area directly ahead of his feet, instinct driving him to run with it down to the net. A few guys group on him and he tries to keep the ball from getting stolen, but he’s not good at this even when his head doesn’t feel like a hot coal on a stick. It vanishes from his sight, disappearing with a mass of quick-moving feet pairs. Good riddance. The ground moves to the upper right of his vision and he doesn’t realize until his shoulder makes impact that he’s fallen. It knocks the wind out of him and he gasps, uncertain which direction is up. His vision fills with spots and the feet return, circling about him. He hears his classmates’ voices, they sound garbled but panicked. 

“Is he okay?”,”Did he pass out?”, “Hey, get him up!”, are all sentences that he hears. He groans. Someone perches in front of him, squatting over his body. It’s Ben. His voice doesn’t sound blurry like the others. “You okay?”

The coach parts the crowd; he sees the strange feet fuck off somewhere replaced by the coach’s trainers. “Get him some water!” shouts the coach. Then, to Ben, “Solo, get off of him. Hey, how many fingers am I holding up?”

It looks like two, but if he blinks it kind of looks like four. Math is usually his strong suit, when it’s not too hot to do. “I think two.”

“You think, huh? Well, you probably just overdid it.”

“I’ve been sick,” admits Hux, sitting up. Someone hands him a water bottle. He hesitates drinking from it, because it belongs to someone, is the refillable type with the plastic pop up straw-stick on top, but he needs the water so he goes ahead. How likely is it that the stranger has worse germs than the ones currently nailing his ass to the floor of the gym? Either the water is cooler or his mouth is warmer than expected.

“Hell, why didn’t you tell me?” asks the Coach angrily. “We need to get you to the nurse.”

“I’ll take him.” That was Ben’s voice. 

Well, isn’t that the ripe cherry atop this shit sundae? 

He allows himself to be manhandled, Ben helping him up to a standing position and then tossing one of his gelatin arms over a broad shoulder. Ben wraps an arm around his waist, his hand gripping just above Hux’s hip. 

This is so unnecessary, he thinks, not to mention humiliating. He passes off the water bottle to someone non-descript as they walk not unlike three-legged race competitors to the nurse’s office. 

“This is ridiculous,” he says. “I’m sure I’m capable of walking.”

“You are walking,” Ben points out. 

“Draped across you.” 

“It could be worse. I could be carrying you.” Ben’s face is closer to his than it had been when they were waiting at the bus stop together. He’s got a slight smile because of the teasing. 

“I’d rather die,” whispers Hux, sure he’s heard anyway.

The nurse’s office is located in the administrative building. It has its own entrance with one of those red cross symbols in the window. Rudely, Ben attempts to speak on his behalf when the office staff ask him why they’re here. “He passed out in gym class,” says Ben. 

It’s not fair that Hux’s brain isn’t coming up with responses quickly enough. He pushes himself off Ben, quite disgusted with the smear of armpit sweat that he’s no doubt left behind. “It’s not a big deal. Just running a fever.”

The woman behind the counter leads them to a room roughly a third the size of his own at home. He manages to walk there himself without fainting, though Ben’s close enough to him that if he did, he’d no doubt be able to catch him - another motivation to stay conscious. He takes a seat in the cushioned blue chair next to the arm pressure cuff. “You going to head back to class?” asks the woman of Ben. 

Ben shakes his head, “After he sees the nurse.”

“He should be fine waiting here. The nurse won’t be long,” she says.

“I’ll wait.”

She shrugs and exits.

There’s not much point to trying to avoid interaction with Ben now, not with them sitting in this blissfully air-conditioned room together, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. He reads a poster on the wall about the negative effects of prolonged use of various drugs. It’s impossible to not feel Ben’s eyes on him; it’s like a touch that he can feel on his skin. It’s such an irksome habit that the other boy has.

“You were sick.”

“Apparently I still am.” The containers of gauze and cotton balls hold his attention now, not nearly as riveting as original Netflix programming, but beggars can’t be choosers. 

“That’s why you weren’t here yesterday.”

“Right again. Your intellect is nothing short of astounding.” 

“I thought I’d done something…” says Ben, with some melancholy. “Said something that made you… want to avoid me.”

Of course, Ben is so vain as to think that Hux would skip class, sabotage his academic career, just to avoid him. The very idea bypasses his illness and goes straight to his annoyance bone (if there is a funny bone, then surely there is an annoyance bone, and it’s no doubt larger). “No. Exceptionally, it was not about you at all.”

Hux pulls at his red shorts. They’re not too short, but he’d rather they be pants, something that hides his pale freckled skin.He pushes a little handout on the counter around a bit before picking it up only to find that it’s about safe sex practices and he quickly puts it back in its spot near the box of blue nitrile gloves. 

Ben’s eyes are lasers in his skin. “You’re staring at me,” Hux grits out, unable to keep quiet about it anymore.

“And you won’t look at me at all.” 

“Well, I think you’re looking enough for the two of us.” 

The silence in the room continues. It’s so quiet he can hear Ben breathing. This is bollocks. He looks up at Ben. One side of his dark brown hair is behind one of his large ears and the other is down in front of an eye, not completely, but a little. Hux wonders how often he must have to push his hair back. Easier to just cut it, he would think, but then, this is the longest Brendol has ever allowed Hux to wear his hair, which isn’t really very long at all, the first time the barber used scissors instead of clippers. Hair the length of Ben’s is impractical, attractive or not. 

“I did do something,” says Ben. He rubs his cheek on a raised shoulder. “I don’t know what though.”

Hux sighs. “It’s fine. I was… confused at first by the nature of your invitation, but I think you’ve made clear to me in what capacity I was asked.”

“As my date?” Ben couldn’t sound more baffled.

“As a last resort ticket taker.” God, he hates how wounded he sounds. He would add more to it, to try and fortify it, but he’s found that adding words rarely helps to convey anything other than overly emotional blatherings. He touches the sex ed pamphlet again, just spins it where it lies.

It’s a terrible time for the nurse to make her appearance, but there she is, the physical embodiment of bedside manner in scrubs with little yellow duckies. “I heard someone fainted!” she says in a speaking-to-small-children voice. “Who could that be?”

Hux exchanges a look with Ben that roughly translates to, ‘what is this woman on?’ before, audaciously, Ben answers her question. “He passed out playing soccer. He’s got a fever and he’s had it two days.”

Oh, he will not stand for this, not to be discussed as though Ben’s his mother, but he is just about to speak when the nurse bursts forth with pity. “Oh no!” she says dramatically. “Well, sweetie, why did you think you could play soccer with a fever?” She reaches out to the wall and grabs the thermometer there, snapping a disposable cap on the end.

Hux glares at Ben as though blaming him for her enthusiasm. Ben, jerk that he is, smirks. 

The thermometer slides into his ear canal while the nurse’s chubby fingers probe at his neck feeling for swelling. “Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” he asks acidly.

“Oh honey, aren’t you sweet to be thinking of me while you feel so bad.” She turns to Ben. “Such a considerate young man.”

Ben, face glowing radiantly with schadenfreude, smiles. “I’ve always thought so.”

“I’ll put them on in a second,” she assures.

The thermometer beeps and she looks at it for a second before popping the disposable cap off into the flip top garbage. “Oh thank goodness, it’s pretty low. Still, you should not be playing sports with any fever, low or high! What other symptoms do you have, sweetie?”

This must be what hell is like. Well, he has never been coddled before and he doesn’t intend to be now. “I would prefer to discuss this in private,” he says glaring at Ben. “And, I am Hux, not…. Sweetie.” He says sweetie as one might say “decapitation” or “genocide.”

The round faced woman looks at Hux as though he’s just appeared before her. Then she looks at Ben. “Well, of course, we can get you privacy. Young man, would you mind stepping out? Perhaps heading back to class?”

Ben’s been leaning against the wall. He straightens up and nods. “Sure. But, uh, Hux, you should send me that ticket when you’re better.”

“What ticket?” Hux is still snarling like an angry dog protecting its front yard. He needs to tweak that, needs to calm down.

Ben opens the tiny room’s door but pauses in its frame, looking back at Hux with delight. “Just whatever ticket you haven’t found a date for, so I can be your last resort.” He smiles and then departs.

Hux loathes, detests how happy this makes him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is new fluff so much easier to write than old serious?


	4. Chapter 4

Ben is not a patient person, like at all. He wants everything to happen now. He skips video game cinematics so he can get straight to the action. If he sees something at the store that he wants and he doesn’t have the money for it, nine times out of ten, he’ll shoplift it, even if his allowance is the next day. So, actually waiting for Hux to be the one that contacts him is his way of going above and beyond. The first few days are killer, and he wonders if he should break the silence with the excuse of seeing if Hux is feeling better, but he holds firm. When Saturday evening comes and goes without a text or a ring, he goes for an anger jog which turns into an anger throwing rocks at stop signs pitching practice. By Monday, as he stares at Hux and notices the great lengths that the new kid goes through to avoid eye contact, Ben has to admit to himself that maybe he’s been waiting for something that isn’t going to happen. It’s been nearly a week since his amazingly smooth exit out of the nurse’s office and that would be a long time for anyone to wait, let alone Ben Solo.

“One more day,” he says out loud while watching Hux stretch out after laps. He’s by himself, as always, but Ben’s taken a spot within 20 feet of him, also as always. Because his own runs are so much quicker, he usually idles around the drinking fountain until Hux finishes up and sits in the grass. Ben stays far enough away to not be totally stalking the standoffish redhead. He’d rather pull him into his lap. Since their time spent together in the nurse’s office, his imagination’s been doing some overtime shifts about how that tiny room could have been better used (in his fantasies, Hux isn’t faint and feverish). 

Donald Mitaka, Mit to his friends, asks “‘Til what?” 

Ben had forgotten that Mit was there next to him, despite the fact that they’d just been having a conversation about Ozark. Mit was like that though, so easy to overlook. Probably some people would say that about Ben’s crush too, because despite Hux’s height and good looks, there was nothing flashy there, only aloof pragmatism. With Hux it’s deliberate, the fading into the background, a concentrated antisocial effort. 

Even though he hadn’t been addressing Mit, just menacingly threatening the air with an ultimatum, he says “Until I write him off for good.” He says this sorta loud because part of him wants Hux to overhear.

“Write who off?” asks Mit. He looks confused, and then when Ben glares at him, conciliatory. “Sorry, are you still talking about the new guy again?”

“Ben’s got a crush on the new guy?” asks Oscar who takes a spot on the grass between Ben and Hux. Even if he wasn’t obstructing the view, Ben would still be displeased. He may be the only person to not like Oscar. Certainly he’s got his fans among the girls, having dated as many of them as he can, but the guys like him too. Many idolize him, because he’s good-looking and friendly and good at everything but schoolwork. Ben thinks he’s too nonchalant, doesn’t trust anyone that’s so consistently chill. Now that Ben’s just learned that he’s also a gossip, he can add that to his reasons.

Mit looks at Ben first, to decide if he’s allowed to share. He doesn’t want another bloody nose like he’d gotten back in, what, seventh grade? Not liking whatever he sees on Ben’s face, he opts out of responding to Oscar. Ben never had an intention of answering. It isn’t that he’s ashamed of liking Hux, just ashamed that he’s getting rejected by him. 

“He never talks though,” complains Oscar loudly. Ren adds loudness to his persona Oscar dislike list. “It’s like he thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

Ben thinks that’s a totally stupid thing to say. “Yeah, that’s because he is.” He would have thought that was obvious.

Oscar laughs. “Yeah, you definitely have a crush.” 

Mit grins, but wisely keeps his mouth shut. Ben glares at them both. 

One more day. He’s giving Hux that seventh day and then he’ll perform a self-lobotomy, cut his crazy fixation out with a spoon if he has to. 

  
  


There’s time before dinner, plenty of it, to call Ben. On Wednesday of last week, Hux told himself that he would call Ben when he was feeling better and that he’d look up some activities to do so that he could suggest a terrific second date, one as fun as the first one but more conducive to dialogue. On Thursday, he’d put his foot down about calling Ben. Sure, Ben was handsome and athletic and popular, but he was also kind of a jerk. Intentional or not, he’d called Hux weak and told him while on a date that he wasn’t the first candidate for said date. Friday he’d watched Ben’s terrifically strong legs propel him into the air, easily clearing the high jump bar, and then stand up bearing a beatific grin of triumph and Hux had thought maybe a second date wouldn’t be so bad, as long as he was clear about where they stood. The weekend had brought about clarity though. Saturday and Sunday, he had definitely felt that to even try and pursue something with someone so obviously his polar opposite would never work. Besides, he had an education to complete. He didn’t need the hassle and the drama of a romantic interest; it would only interfere with his grades. No, he would absolutely just avoid Ben.

Then, today, he’d heard Ben say that Hux was better than everyone else in the class. 

Well hell, why isn’t he saying things like that  _ to _ Hux? It would be a lot easier to like Ben if he would. 

So, now he’s in this bollocks in-between place in his thinking which is  _ not _ how he’s used to his brain working. Decisions tend to be easy to make and any conundrums that pop up, he takes to his father who sets him on the right path, but this is so not something he can talk about with Brendol, couldn’t even if Ben was a girl (though the extra penis involved in the equation is additional incentive for Hux to keep this to himself). 

He looks at the contact in whatsapp and wills himself to just decide. He hears that handsome hispanic guy “Thinks he’s better than everyone else” and Ben’s response “Yeah, that’s because he is” in his head. Well shit, he can’t just not follow through, can he? He’s never thought of himself as particularly susceptible to flattery. He doesn’t recall anyone ever trying. 

Calling is a bad idea, because he doesn’t have anything in his head, but texting doesn’t feel right either. He hits the button before he can change his mind. The ringing sounds like “you’re making a mistake” to his nerves. 

“Hello?”

Ben has a really deep voice for a teenager. Hux coughs, his own voice feeling inadequate. “Hi, it’s Hux. Are you actually interested in going out a second time?” Good, that was a nice direct approach. He’s tired of not knowing where they stand.

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Right, well then…” he’s a little thrown off by the straight answer, expecting more confusing mixed messages. “I just moved here, as you know, so I’ve no idea what there is to do, but if you wanted to suggest something, I’d be happy to pay for the date.”

“Oh, um, I’m sure I can come up with something.”

Look how sane they could both be. He’s proud of them both. “Something a little quieter this time?”

“Yeah,” says Ben. “Gotcha. Something on Saturday?”

Now he’s going into the date blind, which is not Hux’s preference (he hates surprises), but he can’t just demand that Ben come up with date ideas instantly. “Feel free to text me a time and place to meet up. And, if you want to give me a heads up about what we’ll be doing, that would be appreciated as well.”

“Cool. I can do that. Are you feeling better?”

Hux hears the garage door open, his signal both that his father’s home, and that it’s time to wrap up this call. All hell would break loose were Brendol to think he’d not been studying since getting home. “Of course.” It had been a week; Hux had some sort of flu, not anything debilitating. “Look, I need to go. But, I’ll look for your texts.”

“Oh okay, bye.”

“Goodbye,” says Hux clicking the phone off and putting it back on its charger. He doesn’t need to make it look like he’s busy doing homework because he’s still sitting at his desk with his books open from the past couple hours when he’d been too busy thinking of Ben to focus. Well, now he can focus, with the date arranged and all that. In theory. Oh lord, a second date. There would definitely be an expectation to kiss. His studies for the evening are doomed.


	5. Chapter 5

Ben’s got his hood pulled down over his eyes and he can see his nose, his lap, and his phone; that’s it. He needs this. “What’s a good quiet place to hang out?” he mumbles.

Leia, on the couch next to him, stops clacking on her laptop. He’s guarded by thick folds of fabric from the look that she’s probably giving him. He can guess it anyway - he doesn’t initiate conversation much. “My typing is too loud, now?” she asks.

“No, I mean, like outside. Like, places to go that are quiet.” Why is he doing this? He knew it was a bad idea. Dads are supposed to be around for shit like this, dating advice, but Han can’t give any advice anymore, and even if he could, for all he pretended to be the studliest ladies’ man ever, he had more bumbled into snagging Leia than actual proper wooing. It just turned out that Leia liked immature self-centered idiots with fast motorcycles.

“Like, a library?” she asks, still not following what he’s saying. 

“Like, to take a date.”

He wiggles his shoulders uncomfortably, as though the Disney channel feel of this conversation is giving him a rash. Her silence might as well be the audience laugh track. Luckily, Leia isn’t really the Disney mom type. That kind would gush about her little boy growing up and shit, and she might be on the inside, but she’s totally cynical, like him, not as peppy as Han. “I don’t know. Don’t you kids have apps for that?” It’s good, actually, the unhelpful shitty answer, because then he doesn’t feel lame anymore. He’s annoyed at her lack of parenting skills instead, and he’s way more comfortable with any emotions that fall on the anger spectrum. 

“Yeah, I’ll just take him to an app, Leia,” he says sarcastically.

She slaps his leg, not hard. “Mom,” she clarifies for the thousandth time. “And, I meant, like, Yelp reviews?”

“Well, where do you take work people when you have to schmooze?” 

He’s perusing Twitter while they’re talking. He doesn’t know why he bothers with it, keeps telling himself he’s gonna delete it, but it ropes him in with stupid shit, just like Instagram or Reddit but with fewer pictures. Wastes of time.

“To restaurants too rich for your allowance,” she says, wryly. “Ben…” she says, nudging him. “Can you pull back the hood a minute?”

Crap. He does, glaring daggers at her for making him lower his shield. She’s got a soft expression on her face. “Is this a first date?”

“Second. He wants someplace quiet,” he mutters. This is beyond embarrassing. “Hosnian Prime Massacre was too loud for him.” He knows that Hux had a good time the way that he’d thrashed himself about, red-faced, sweaty, and completely in-the-moment. The quiet is probably so that they can talk, which isn’t really Ben’s forte, especially around his crush, but he’s not going to question the stipulations by which he gets a second date.

“I didn’t realize that you had a date to that,” she says with a smile. “Well, if you’re going for an ‘impress-the-guy’ sort of situation, maybe your mom, that’s me, by the way, not “Leia,” could throw a little extra cash your way so that you can go to one of those too fancy restaurants.”

He could see Hux in a fancy restaurant, one stuffy and austere like he carries himself in their classes, innate mosher tucked away underneath waiting for permission to be unleashed. “That’d be cool,” he says with a shrug.

She’s working on a presentation, the current slide half typed up on her screen. He’d die of boredom having a job like hers. Ben hasn’t decided whether he wants to try and go further with his athletic aptitude or if he wants to chuck everything and just go wander about the globe. He likes the idea of just being a modern Rurouni Kenshin, traveling around, beating up people, seeing shit he’s never even thought existed, and eating weird foods that would creep out everyone he knows. 

She sighs. “Yeah, I’m known for my coolness. Fine, I’ll recommend you a restaurant and give you some money. Does that earn me his name?”

Part of him doesn’t want to tell her, but most of him wants to talk about his redheaded posh-accented obsession with anyone who will listen. “Hux. He’s from England.” He says. Then, when she doesn’t say anything he adds, “He’s got red hair.” She nods, looks back to her laptop. He’d kind of hoped she’d have more questions than that. He flips his hood back on, not pulling it down as far as it was before. He can’t resist throwing out, “He hates everyone.”

“It’s good to have mutual interests,” quips Leia. 

When Ben had texted him, “Fancy restaurant. No metal bands,” Hux had assumed he’d meant fancy for high schoolers, but the place is genuinely elegant, and he wishes he’d dressed more for the occasion, at least he could have put on a tie. Classical music plays beneath restaurant chatter and the clink of plates and utensils. The lighting is low, but the wall sconces highlight paintings and sculptures. It reminds him of a restaurant in Athens which had been old and merry, but in a more subdued manner than others there, fitting his father’s disposition better. He’d been too young to appreciate that trip; he remembered the boredom practically turning his hair white and he’d felt not unlike the architecture, slowly crumbling away. He had more fun in Barcelona where he’d been positively enchanted by the street performers of Las Ramblas and his father had physically wrenched him away complaining that no son of his would end up as a mime in Spain. 

Ben looks handsome but uncomfortable. His tie is clipped on and Hux would wager all the queen’s jewels that he doesn’t know how to tie a real one. The image of tying one for him, his hands near the large Adam's apple of Ben’s throat, bubbles like champagne, and he lets himself indulge in the intoxicating thrill of doing this. He’d expected that dating would come in college, maybe junior year. To be doing it now, while he’s still in this transitionary period, is surreal. It feels like he’s making a mistake, jeopardizing something in his future for a pretty face in the present. 

“I should have worn a tie,” he says to Ben.

“Oh, uh, I thought it was probably overkill, anyway.” Ben fidgets at it, and if he’s not careful, his big hands are going to yank the thing off. “Is this place quiet enough?”

“I wasn’t saying it had to be a monastery, Ben. Just… I don’t feel as though I know you at all.” He hadn’t meant to speak so frankly and he sips at his water glass to hide his awkwardness. 

Ben smiles. “Well, what do you want to know? I don’t have that many secrets.”

“But you do have some? Is it wrong of me that now that’s what I want to ask about?” Hux has never flirted, unless one counted his acerbic jabs as flirtation, which, given that this is date number two, Ben might. He’s flirting now and his tongue feels thicker with it. His eyes keep connecting with the lovely brunette across from him, flitting away when it becomes too intense, like optical hot potato.

“If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets.”

“And you’d have to kill me,” Hux says. “Fine, tell me about your family.” That seems like a safe enough topic for conversation.

“Mom and a little sister. My dad died a few years ago. Han didn’t… my dad, Han, he didn’t stay in touch much with his family, and Leia was adopted out so all she’s got is a twin brother who she tracked down when they were grown up.”

“Twins? Do they look alike?”

Ben laughs. “Not even a little bit. Uncle Luke’s okay though.” He leans in closer and lowers his voice. “He only has one arm. It got eaten up by some machinery when he was 19.”

Hux’s oft-dismissed imagination makes short work of how that scene probably went and he’s less hungry immediately. “That’s unfortunate,” he says. Then, to turn the conversation to more palatable topics, he asks, “And what’s your sister’s name?”

“Rey, but spelled with an ‘e’ to make it less boyish.” His eyes twinkle, and Hux notes that he wants to bring this subject up again so that he can see that fondness again. “She’s five. Very smart kid. Always happy.”

“You like her.”

“Yeah, she’s not bad.”

When the waiter takes their order, Hux opts for something in a middle-price range, not too expensive to take all of his date’s money, and not too cheap to tip him off that cost is being considered at all. 

“I’ve never tried the cherry vanilla Coke,” says Hux, indicating Ben’s drink. He doesn’t often drink carbonated drinks, but he loves both flavors and has a curiosity.

“You wanna try?” asks Ben, shifting the sweaty glass across the table. 

“You don’t mind?” 

“Nah, knock your socks off.” 

Hux isn’t sure of etiquette regarding the straw, but the flirtatious urge is still in him, so he goes ahead, drinking from the same place that Ben’s lips had been. He sips gently, feeling eyes upon him. He’s nervous enough without feeling like he’s performing. 

“It’s not that different from regular cherry, is it?” he says with a frown. 

“Nah,” says Ben as Hux passes the glass back. “You like vanilla?”

Hux nods. “It’s my second favorite flavor.” Then, to the question on his date’s face, he adds, “Coffee. I’m not sure why they don’t make a coffee-flavored soda.”

Ben laughs. “Probably cause that would be really gross.” There’s no condemnation there, just amusement. “I’d try it. But then, I’ll try anything.” 

Hux doesn’t mind the brag, because it’s probably not too far off from the truth. The first day they’d met, he’d seen Ben go down a rope upside down. He’s sure there are lots of shenanigans that a guy like that would be up for getting into. Still, he tosses a little skepticism his date’s way, just because. “Anything?”

“Well, I’m not saying that I’d kill someone or anything, but yeah, I wanna live. I wanna do everything there is to do and see everything there is to see. You only live once, right?”

“So far as I’m aware,” says Hux vaguely. His own plans for the future are so narrow in focus and methodical, each step following the next. School, more school, unpleasant job, conjuring up imaginary girlfriends for his father while falling into a rut with someone more suited to his sexual preference, retiring, and dying. The whole thing wasn’t exactly the anime adventure that his date was looking forward to. 

“Well, what do you want to do?” asks Ben. He actually seems curious, too, like he wants to know the answer. Looking into the maple syrup-colored eyes, his only desire is to get out of tonight unscathed. Why he’d ever thought one date was a good idea is beyond him; he’s not a whole person yet, just a half-formed construct of Brendol’s. He has no business flirting with romance.

“I can’t say I’ve given it much thought,” Hux replies, and he’s terribly disappointed with himself for such a mundane answer, but then he’s a very mundane person. “I suppose it would be nice to visit more old battlegrounds. I’ve been to a few, but there are so many.”

“Battlegrounds?” asks Ben with a smile. “You like war stuff?”

Hux nods sheepishly. “I’m doing my final project for history on Fat Man and Little Boy.” 

With a whistle, Ben leans back in his seat. “Heavy stuff. Carnivore’s got a couple songs about nuclear war, but they’re kinda old. I think people don’t think about it much these days. They’re too busy looking at leaked celebrity nudes.”

“There’s something… compelling about making the decision to end that many lives for the sake of preventing even more.” He shuts up once he hears himself. Though he could drone on given the right amount of circumstances about the draw that such topics hold for him, he sounds like a crazy person when he does. Morbid topics at the table. Between his nukes and Ben’s armless uncle, this conversation has been downright impolite. “Anyway, I suppose travel is also something that could be considered an aim of mine.”

He should be used to Ben’s eyes on him, but he’s still self-conscious from talking about himself, and as a result, it feels more penetrating than usual. He throws out a question, anything to get the focus off of himself, and the two speak more or less as normal individuals until the food arrives. It’s good, not real Italy good, but leaps and bounds beyond what Mara serves up. 

“So, why aren’t you on the track team?” asks Hux after swallowing down another bite of his aubergine marinara. “You’re faster than everyone else.”

Ben shrugs. “Then they’d want me to be at school longer.”

“I’m of a similar mindset, actually. I know that universities prefer extra-curriculars when considering applicants, so I’ve devoted more of my time to voluntarism in non-school settings. I prefer the company of the rambling impoverished elderly to our classmates.”

“You use a lot of big words,” says Ben looking a bit dazzled. Hux tries not to feel embarrassed about his vocabulary, because he knows it’s nothing to actually feel ashamed of. Modern anti-intellectualism is rampant enough among the general populace; teenagers can be downright cruel to those with ‘smart’ behaviors. “And, I get what you mean. There’s a lot of tools at our school.”

“Is that why you don’t have any friends?” asks Ben, quickly coloring when he realizes that he’d just insulted Hux. “I mean… why you don’t try to make friends, not that you can’t or anything.”

“It must be hard with feet that large to chew around them,’ says Hux with a smirk. He doesn’t feel offended this time, because he’s finally gauging that Ben isn’t trying to put him down; he’s just really bad at talking to people he wants to impress. If he’d understood that when they’d first met they might have avoided some very awkward weeks.

The pink on Ben’s cheeks deepens. “Well, it’s true. You don’t have any friends.”

“Correct,” says Hux. “And your friends are tools.” He would not have described them thus before this conversation, but it’s not inaccurate.

“You haven’t even met my friends.” Ben waves his hand. “Those are just the guys I hang around with in gym.”

“Good. I find it a relief that Mit is not a shining example of your companionship choices.”

Ben laughs, just low, but it’s nice. Hux really likes Ben’s laugh. There’s a lot of things he likes about Ben, he’s decided. This was a good idea: conversation without amplified electric guitars. 

Neither of them orders dessert and they pass the time waiting for the check to be cleared snarkily gossiping about their fellow classmates. It’s good to be on Ben’s side for once. He feels like they’ve been in hostile territory for so much of their acquaintance. He knows better than to ask if Ben wants him to pick up any of the bill, an instinct proven right when Ben puts the money in the billfold as proud as if he just gave birth to it.

“So, what next?” he asks. 

Ben smiles nervously. “Movie?”

“Very traditional.” 

“Is that okay?”

It’s endearing how eager Ben is to get this date right from the silly clip tie to the quietest restaurant. “Very much so,” he assures. 


	6. Chapter 6

“You can’t be serious.  _ Death Train VI: All Aboard _ ? How could anyone have greenlighted  _ one _ movie named Death Train, let alone  _ six _ of them?”

“They’re fun. They actually got better after the third one. Lots more gore.”

“You’ve seen the other five?” asks Hux, his voice going shrill with judgmental shock.

Ben does not tell Hux that he’s seen this sixth one as well, nor that he owns a boxed set of the first three. “It’s about a haunted train that makes its passengers go crazy and kill each other.” When this description fails to move his date, he adds, “The deaths are pretty creative. One woman gets folded in half and stuffed in a suitcase.”

“And what could possibly pair better with a romantic Italian dinner than that?” 

Ben’s at a loss. He shoves his hands into his stupid fancy dress pants. “Okay, well, what do you want to see?”

It’s a surprisingly busy night outside the theater, with groups standing around eyeing the marquee, some also arguing about which movie to see, and a line of well-bundled decisive folks going straight for the entrance because they’d been smart enough to buy their tickets on-line. Ben doesn’t recognize the other teenagers, no one from their school at least, which is both good and bad. If some asshole like Oscar was around, he’d flip them shit and make it awkward. On the other hand, it would be nice if they could see that the new kid hadn’t rejected him after all, that his pining wasn’t just a one-sided pathetic loser thing, but a lead up to dating. The way that Hux had interacted with him at dinner, he’s thinking that he might actually have a shot at a third date. 

“Hm, well, there’s  _ Fleurs, Pommes, et Tristesse _ . It’s been nominated for several awards.”

“That’s a foreign movie, like with subtitles and shit.”

Hux grins devilishly at him. “I’m sorry, you want to travel the world without being exposed to other languages?” 

Okay, that was a decent call-out that he deserves. “I don’t mean that. It’s just that, those movies tend to be really depressing, right? I mean…” he coughs pointedly, “Would watching French people talk about dying pair better with the romantic Italian dinner?” He’s proud of himself for throwing the obnoxiously smart redhead’s words back at him.

“Actually, yes, I think it would.” Hux says. Then, he sighs. “But, I do think that the main characters die at the end.”

“Spoilers!” Ben cries, covering his ears. 

Hux slaps at his upper arm softly. “You don’t care about the ending, you ignorant American!” 

He loves this rare playfulness and the openness of Hux’s body language. It emboldens him to step into the bubble of his space, and to reach a hand out to his waist. Hux’s eyes grow wide and his cheeks, already a bit pink from the cold, turn positively red by the light of the marquee. Ben draws him in closer, snakes the other hand around as well, and oh, he’s wanted to have his arms around Hux for so long that he can scarcely believe that he’s doing so now. Hux isn’t killing him for it either, just breathing shallowly while staring at him with large eyes. He knocks his forehead softly into Hux’s and whispers, “I don’t care about the movie.” 

Ben feels him shiver. He waits for another response, waits for Hux to push him off, or maybe to kiss him if he’s really lucky, but eventually he pulls back his head enough to read Hux’s face, so that he’s not just a cross-eyed blur in his vision. He’s never seen so much emotion on Hux’s face. Well, that’s not entirely true. He’s never seen so much non-anger there before. He looks scared and excited and maybe just as into this as he is. 

“You pick the movie and if you want we can just sit in the back…” Ben whispers, boldly. At least he isn’t insulting Hux’s athletic ability this time. It might not be the smoothest line ever, but it’s way better than his norm, and it certainly does not deserve the quickly narrowed glare that lands on him. 

“And what if I want to sit right upfront and actually watch the film?”

He sounds so affronted that Ben doesn’t know what he did. His grip on Hux’s waist loosens. “Uh, then we can watch from upfront… and our necks can hurt from being two tall guys jammed up against the screen?” Hux’s head tilts, studying him for long enough that he asks, “What?” with a defensive tone.

“You’d read subtitles right up next to the screen and pay attention to the foreign film?”

“Look, Hux, I don’t know what your problem is, but yeah, if you wanna see Fleur les something Trist we can. I didn’t know how bad you wanted to see it, I guess?” He’s taking a wild stab at the cause of Hux’s displeasure. “Though, you did already ruin the ending.”

Hux’s seriousness breaks. He grabs at Ben’s hands, unwrapping them from his waist, but he keeps a good grip on one of Ben’s hands, interlacing them as he leads them towards the ticket booth. “Good. I don’t care about the movie either. Let’s just pick whatever’s next and get out of the cold.” 

Confused, but happy about the new hand-holding arrangement, Ben follows. Instead of choosing a raunchy comedy with some former Saturday Night Live comedian which starts in five minutes, Hux opts for a showing of Death Train VI already ten minutes underway. “I presume we’ll be able to follow the plot if we miss the opening scene?” he asks with a pesky sarcasm as he leads them to the ticket taker. 

“You laugh but some of the twists get pretty clever.” 

The trailers provide them enough of a buffer that the opening credits are still rolling while Hux leads them to the back of the theater. Good, that means that Hux won’t miss the conductor making his deal with the devil and won’t be completely lost when the surviving passengers trick the guy into breaking his contract later on. They’re the only ones in the back row, so Hux moves them right into the center, his eyes darting between the seats and the screen. After they sit down, hands only separated long enough to get situated (Ben lifts the arms rest between them), Hux whispers, “Is that the devil?”

“Yeah, sometimes she’s just steam with red eyes, but other times she’s all demon-makeupped.”

“And falling out of her top…” Hux notes with disdain. 

“She’s supposed to be tempting,” says Ben with a shrug. 

“I notice her makeup doesn’t extend down to her chest.”

The devil makeup took hours to apply, Ben remembers from the behind the scenes featurette, and the actress, Katie-something, said she liked voicing the steam better for that reason. Ben had liked her addition to the series and she’s one of the reasons he prefers the later installments. He’s always a sucker for a good Faustian bargain; there’s something cool about good people seduced to evil that’s relatable in a way he can’t define.

“Check out how he seals the deal,” he whispers to Hux in amusement.

A minute or two later, Hux looks away from the screen with a grimace. “Oh, that’s just excessive,” he complains. 

Ben laughs. 

Despite the plan to ignore the movie and just suck face in the back, Hux engages with the movie. Ben doesn’t even feel disappointed. They’re still leaning close to each other, hands taking turns doing finger pirouettes on the other’s palm and wrist, and by the end of the second act, Hux’s head is on his shoulder, occasionally turning down to hide his eyes by burying his face in Ben’s coat. It’s intimate and fun. He chuckles quietly every time that his date’s mouth scrunches up in disgust and the one time that he gives a wide-eyed shocked look just before asking “Surely they won’t kill the child, right?”

He assures Hux that even this movie isn’t going to kill a toddler and then bravely kisses the tip of his nose, like he’s the most precious thing ever, because the sweet concern is precious, especially from such a seemingly cold-hearted guy. Hux has layers. The outermost are prickly, meant to keep people away. Ben likes those; they make him interesting, like a puzzle to be solved. Also, if they ever get serious, he’ll have to worry less about others making a move on his boyfriend.

During act three, he begins to kiss the individual knuckles on Hux’s hand, and the redhead watches him more than the screen. He squirms when Ben nibbles them, but doesn’t complain or try to retrieve his hand. The fingers are long and delicate and pale even in the dark theater. He’d happily gobble them up just like the rest of Hux. 

“I’d turn cannibal for you,” Ben whispers. It’s a weird thing to say. Moviegoers could find their way to their seats by the light of Hux’s cheeks, though, so he doesn’t regret saying it.

“I think...I think I’d let you,” stammers Hux. 

Ben takes that as an invitation. It isn’t a long distance to travel for a kiss, inches really, but he moves really slowly so that he can watch Hux’s eyes close, his breath catch, and his lips slightly part. The gore on the screen bathes his pale face with a reddish tint, clashing with the orange of his hair. It’s supposed to be gropey and adolescent, sitting in the back of the theater, but when he kisses Hux for the first time, it’s the softest most perfect thing ever. His bottom lip brushes from just underneath Hux’s bottom lip, somehow capturing the cushiony flesh there without opening his mouth. He can feel the pull of it cling to him as he moves higher, lightly grazing Hux’s upper lip. The hand in his squeezes tightly and Hux kisses more firmly against him, mouth opening slightly. 

Movie score blaring on the surround sound speakers or not, Ben can hear his own heartbeat. He’s kissing the new kid! Oh, this is exactly what he has wanted since the first day that he looked down and saw the red tuft of isolated teen. More than that, the new kid is kissing him back, lips body-heat warm and soft as the artificial down blanket tucked away in the hall closet. The violence on-screen amps up but their kissing remains tender, a word not often applied to either of them and they completely miss the ending lost in each other. 

  
  


They steal kisses and cuddles the whole way home, contributing to the layer of condensation on the bus window and tripping over uneven sidewalks because neither can waste a glance at the ground. Hux feels drunk. No wonder everyone makes such a ruckus about love and sex; he feels phenomenal. Ben could talk him into literally anything right now and he’d do it with an idiotic grin on his face. Only a few hours ago he’d never been kissed and now they must be into the hundreds, maybe even the thousands, if he counted the tiny ones or the barely-there mouth slide ones. Let them hit a million then, because he’s already addicted to the feeling, and he doesn’t want to look back.

They kiss outside of Ben’s home underneath a street lamp like they’ve nothing to hide and with total disregard to the rain intermittently sprinkling them in the cold night. It’s only when the drips become full-fledged droplets that Ben asks if he wants to come inside. The lights are on and there’s an SUV in the driveway; does he want to subject himself to meeting the Solo family? It’s only their second date. Does he really want Ben’s mother associating Hux with how swollen and pink her son’s lips are? 

When he hesitates too long, Ben pulls him toward the house, removing the option. Hux finds it harder and harder to move his feet. After unlocking the door, Ben flashes him a smile. “They’re not that bad,” he assures.

It’s deliciously warm inside. He’s been sucking back run-off from his cold red nose for blocks now, trying to keep from sliming his kissing partner, so he’d known he was cold, it just hadn’t mattered that much. Now he realizes that his fingers are on the numb side. Stupid. He has gloves in his pocket. He just hadn’t been wearing them because he liked the feel of Ben’s mouth on them. 

“Ben’s home!” chimes a child’s voice. This must be… Hux considers. Rey, spelled with an E to make it girly. Had that really been tonight that Ben had told him that? It feels like a lifetime ago, during the Before Kiss times. 

He hears the exhalation from Ben at the impact of the child on him before he sees her. She peeks out from his side with a face full of excitement. “And he brought his boyfriend!”

“Rey,” growls Ben. “I told him you were a cool little sister, not one of the annoying ones that other guys have. You wanna prove me wrong, kiddo?”

She shakes her head, but her eyes take an inventory of every one of Hux’s features, and he’s never felt so evaluated in his life. If the sister is like this, what will the mother be like? He’s never been brought home to meet parents before. “Is it raining?” she asks Ben.

“No, I went to the waterpark without you.”

She looks at him skeptically, trying to wrap her head around the sarcasm. Hux wonders at what age children learn such concepts. It feels like he came out of the womb with a sardonic wit. Finally, she figures that her brother has been teasing her. “No, you didn’t!” she says with a slap.

“Rey Kira Solo, you are supposed to be in bed!” shouts a raspy female voice. Hux’s bones straighten up, like a skeleton soldier at boot camp. The woman that appears is too short to have given birth to Ben Solo, and there’s a craftiness in her eyes that Hux hopes to never see in her son’s. He can’t tell if the smile that graces her face is genuine or artificial.

“She was meeting Hux,” says Ben, one hand going to his sister’s shoulder protectively. 

“Mmm,” she hums. “I suppose I should as well. Hello Hux, I’m Leia.” Her children part for her in the narrow hallway and her hand rises up. 

It’s only instinct that breaks through the fear and he raises his hand and gives her a Brendol Hux firm-but-brief shake. “Pleasure to meet you, Leia.” 

“Yeah well, that’s about as much formality as I can take in a night. You want something to drink, just ask Ben.” She departs with as little preamble as she’d appeared. If that’s all there is to meeting the parents, Hux isn’t sure what all the fuss is about. That was easy. 

“Did you want something to drink?”

“I feel hydrated enough, thank you. I believe it all soaked through my skin.” 

“Why does he talk funny?” asks Rey, looking up at both their faces with eager curiosity. Her ears stick out like Ben’s would if they weren’t hidden by hair. Her very long t-shirt (is the kid even wearing pants?) has a cartoon t-rex eating carrots.

“I’m from a foreign country,” Hux answers in Ben’s stead. “One you’re likely descended from.”

Ben laughs. “She’s not going to understand any of that. She’s five. He talks funny because he used to live far away and because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone here.”  
“I’m smart!” she cries as Hux glares at Ben. “And I can too understand.”

“Okay, then you can understand why you have to go to bed,” Ben reasons. 

Against her objections, they see her to her room, a space-themed room that any kid would be lucky to have. Adhesive stars illuminate her walls. She’s even got a telescope which he can’t resist touching. Rey doesn’t seem to mind. She introduces him to the viewing device and a plush astronaut and an assortment of aliens ranging from traditional green to fuschia. Everything has two names, a given and a family name. He gives Ben a ‘She’s kind of weird’ look which he answers with a shrug.

“Hey, Rey, get into bed. I’m going to show Hux my room now.”  
“Can I come?”

Whatever look his date gives the little girl shuts her up. She climbs under her shooting star blanket and grabs four of the nearest plush toys, tucking them in with her. It’s not a very big bed but she doesn’t seem to mind sharing. “Can you tell me a story? Just a little one?”

“Do you think Hux knows a bedtime story?” asks Ben. Devilry shines in his eyes when he looks at Hux and now he sees a bit of the resemblance between him and his mother. “They might not have bedtime stories in England.”

Hux scoffs. “We invented bedtime stories.”

“Well then.” Ben finds a spot on the bed, crushing a few stuffed animals, so that he can sit and listen as well. Rey is vibrating with excitement.

Oh lord.

Hux ruminates for a few precious seconds before opting to go for talking about what he knows. “Once upon a time in the 1940s, there was a terrible war. Many countries were fighting. Some Americans wanted to involve themselves, others felt that it wasn’t their place. Then there was an attack on American soil… dirt. Some believe that the leaders of America let it happen, because the repercus… because that made everyone want to join the fight. Regardless, America was in the big awful war and they had a big awful weapon. A bomb. And it went…” Hux makes a loud explosion noise, separating his hands to simulate the force. “And the Axis… the um, well, one side that didn’t have the weapon, were scared and realized they would have to stop or else they could be next. Sort of like when your mum yells at Ben and you realize if you speak up, she’ll punish you too.”

Rey looks positively rapt, though he’s not sure how much of what he’s saying she understands. “And treaties...um, they all agreed on pieces of paper to behave and a world organization was formed to try and make sure no one else took their fighting too far. Now, what too far means is certainly up for debate, but that’s neither here nor there. The thing is that everyone was able to live happily ever after because the person with the most firepower decides how things go.”

Rey claps, which is more of a reception than he’d expected. Ben bends over her excited face and kisses her. “Now, go to sleep.”

As they leave the room, Ben ignites a nebula on the ceiling as a nightlight so bright they might as well leave the overhead light on. He leads Hux to his room and soon as he steps through the door, Ben is grabbing him, crushing him in a bear hug. “Did you really just tell my sister about the bombing of Hiroshima as a bedtime story?”

The lights are not on in the room, so he can’t tell if Ben is angry or not. “I did, yes.”  
Somehow Ben’s lips feel better in the dark, or maybe it’s just the passion with which he’s kissing, a more time-sensitive urgent speed and pressure. Ben pushes him back against the door, shutting it with a loud slam as does. 

“Be mine? You don’t have to call it boyfriends if you don’t want to, but please be mine,” Ben whispers in the dark. 

Before he can answer, a tapping comes at the door just behind Hux’s body. He lurches off of it feeling caught out as he never has before. Ben swears and flips on the light revealing a room full of posters and dirty laundry. He opens the door while Hux looks around in horror at the slovenly wreck that is Ben’s personal space. “Yeah?”

“Visiting hours are over for tonight.” He doesn’t know Leia well enough to say whether she’s mad or not but her delivery had been deadpan.

“Since when do we have visiting hours?” snarls Ben.

Hux puts a hand on the back of Ben’s shoulder. He looks back at Hux who sees Leia already shuffling away from the door. “I probably should get home soon anyway.” He’s glad to be able to diffuse the situation because he’s pretty sure that when Ben and Leia really get into it, Pearl Harbor could not contend with the chaos. 

The walk to the bus stop is tense, with the rain beating on their heads and Ben in a bad mood from his mother’s interruption, but their hands again intertwine, and again he leaves off his gloves. There’s a streetlight directly above the stop and they can see the details of the rain by its glow rather than just hearing the clatter of it all around them. Immediately he’s engulfed in Ben again and he will get so spoiled by this, he knows.

“I very much want to be your boyfriend. If that wasn’t just pillow talk, back in your room,” he says into the collar of Ben’s coat. He speaks louder than he would normally say something so embarrassing but he wants to be heard over the rain. 

Ben smiles winningly at him, one side a little higher than the other. “You’ll be mine?”

“Isn’t that what I’ve just said?” 

A loud whoop erupts from Ben’s sizable chest and even with the lack of any other souls around, Hux shakes his head in total humiliation. He’s smiling too, though, and soon they’re kissing again, kissing in the rain like a romantic cliche.

“Watch Hux!” someone yells.

He’s never been the one that classmates have to watch out for in events of an athletic nature; he’s still not now, but that doesn’t stop his moronic lovesick boyfriend from repeatedly passing him the ball as though they’re equals on the playing field. Now, because of Ben, he has three bossy smelly jocks pressed on all sides of his body. Times like this make him yearn for the anonymity of his transfer student status, but there’s no hiding when you’re Ben Solo’s love. He’s as subtle about his feelings for Hux as a mosher at a metal concert, all exuberant overdramatic enthusiasm, and there isn’t a student, teacher, or administrative employee that doesn’t know they’re a couple.

To Hux’s relief, Ben opts to pass to someone who isn’t completely surrounded. A rare moment of good decision-making that he hopes will start a trend. 

The crowd abandons him and he watches his boyfriend in the center of the action. He’s all fire and movement, graceful in a somewhat destructive way. It’s been a week and Hux is already irrevocably in love. He’s not sure what the future holds for them - he’ll be six feet under before he ever lets Brendol know and they can’t possibly attend the same college unless Ben’s been paying someone else to do his homework for the last few years - but this unexpected detour through romance has Hux realizing that there are some things he doesn’t want to have to wait for. He doesn’t want to wait til retirement to see battlegrounds around the world. He wants to see them with Ben beside him ignoring the location and instead admiring him, like he’s a far more wondrous thing than the places that have seen nations rise and fall. He doesn’t want to wait to be happy.

Ben gets the ball again and Hux groans. One thing that having Ben for a boyfriend hasn’t done is make gym class suck any less. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This was just a lark to provide distractions while working on my bigger fics and I'm glad so many of you have found it enjoyable!


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